Distributed Dynamic Coordination Control for Offshore Platform Transportation Under Ocean Environmental Disturbances

Transportation of a large offshore platform from inland waters to the open sea is a hazardous and challenging mission. With the development of the autonomous surface vessel (ASV), the problem of large floating object transportation has a chance to be solved by applying multiple physical-connected autonomous tugboats. This article proposes a...

Follow-the-Leader Guidance, Navigation, and Control of Surface Vessels: Design and Experiments

A novel follow-the-leader approach for azimuth-driven vessels is devised and experimentally tested in a model-scale outdoor scenario. The vessels are equipped with global navigation satellite and inertial navigation systems. A line-of-sight algorithm ensures the yaw-check ability of the follower vessel along the leader's path, while a speed...